The invention relates generally to network communications management. More specifically, the invention relates to systems and methods for vertically integrating network management capabilities across various transport layers such as Synchronous Optical Networking/Wavelength Division Multiplexing (SONET/WDM), Layer 2 Ethernet, and Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs).
Traditional telecommunications network Operation Support Systems (OSS) are developed to manage specific transports and/or functional domains. Network management of traditional telecommunication services would require coordination of multiple work-centers and information correlation among multiple OSS management systems. This OSS management paradigm may be sufficient for network services that can afford long cycle time in adopting new technology and have regular requirements on customer Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
Availability of metro-optical equipment and the emergence of Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) technology over the past several years have enabled a niche market for a high availability Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) to support high bandwidth and secure transport in meeting the network demands of mid-size and large enterprise customers. These network services often have demanding SLAs and require exceptional response time in customer care. Current OSSs within traditional network management paradigms cannot meet the management needs of this niche market.
FIG. 1 shows an optical SONET/Dense WDM (DWDM) transport (solid lines) with a provisioned SONET path (ring) (broken lines) originating at a source ring A and ending at a destination ring Z transporting Ethernet. A SONET path originates on an A port and terminates on a Z port, where a port is part of a node and the node is part of the ring. Typically, network event and alarm information and network discovery are captured in different OSS systems requiring an operator to use disjointed systems and manually correlate information between the two layers for network management needs. FIG. 2 shows the SONET/Ethernet transport, with the addition of provisioned VLANs adding another layer of information. The branches represent the LANs, for example, in the customer locations that feed the VLAN traffic over the network for WAN/MAN transport from one customer location to another. FIG. 3 shows the optical transport experiencing a fault—a fiber break at destination ring Z.
Using a traditional network management system, it may not be possible to easily observe VLAN resources from the source ring A to destination ring Z. Additionally, if a fiber break occurs, it would be difficult to observe how alarms associated with the fiber break appear across the three vertical domains. For example, will alarms annunciated from VLAN resources indicate an optical failure?
What is desired is a management system and method that vertically integrates management capabilities across various transport domains in a single platform to support end-to-end (E2E) network management needs and optimizes operational efficiency and network management cost in the niche market of high bandwidth metropolitan network services.